Business
Don Blames Lack Of Dev On Poor Environment
A lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Prof. Emmanuel Oladapo, has said that poor environmental performance is hindering sustainable development in Nigeria Oladapo noted in an interview with our correspondent in Abuja on Saturday that a lot of unchecked environmental activities had polluted the country’s environment.
“A lot of activities are going on in our environment which have polluted the air, land and water. These challenges need government attention to reduce the effect on the environment.
“Gas flaring in the Niger Delta needs to be tackled with all seriousness.
“Statistics has shown that 69.1 per cent of Nigerians are poor, indicating that something is wrong with our development. We have not been consistent in promoting environmental sustainability.”
Oladapo, who is also a climatology and environmentalist, urged the Federal Government to map out strategies to address environmental issues in a coherent manner as environment holds the key to sustainability.
However, he noted that a strong political will and accountability would assist in promoting socio-economic, environmental, educational issues, among others.
He noted that the forthcoming Rio+20 in Brazil slated for June would focus on green economy in the context of sustainable development, poverty eradication, and institutional framework for sustainable development.
He expressed the need for Nigeria to strive for green and sustainable economic development to achieve the goals of Vision 20:20:20 and the MDGs by 2015.
Oladapo also expressed the need for all stakeholders, including MDAs, NGOs, the media, CBOs and the academia, to come up with suggestions to achieve the goals.
“All stakeholders have to come up with different suggestions in areas they felt government should address.
“And all these should be put together in a summary as a document for presentation at the Rio +20 conference.
“Areas that are expected to be captured in the document should include the achievement, opportunity, challenges, next line of action, among others.
“All these suggestions should be included in the draft for sustainable development we are developing for the country.”